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Consent is precisely the issue at the heart of much of the debate, moral and philsophical, regarding whether there is a should or ought to in terms of treating other animals. I will be as brief as possible (i.e. not go into every nook and cranny), but here's some food for thought:

 

Often a discussion of the sort entails projection of our values and perception onto that of another animal whilst we are aware of differences, particularly in terms of executive (mental) function. This is why the comparison of an animal to a toddler is often brought up. However, I contend that this is inaccurate both empirically and philosophically. Why? This entails a double standard. First, projection means that to an extent we are ignoring the fact that there are inherent differences in the species and the analogy can only draw similarities in measures of intellectual function...but it cannot suggest equivalence in terms of regard. Also, we can only meaningfully discuss matters regarding consent (and most people tend to be implicitly dependent on informed consent no less) if we presume that animals do have some notion of consent otherwise it is irrelevant. Such things as connotations of violation would not be possible were it not for the notion of consent.

 

What are the implications of this? Not that we can treat animals however we want, oh no. Given that we can still think of animals as moral agents, in that we can presume that they are aware, have faculties of affectation and cognition and show decision making ability. This in itself appears to imply that (some/most) animals do have the ability to consent, so let's take a closer look.

 

How do we determine consent anyhow? In terms of interacting with other beings and thus in the context of any relationship, we can only interpret the signals given to us. Here, due to our now heavy reliance on the abstract, conceptualised interpretation of such things as empathy, our rational bent has us valuing interaction and its assessment on a level that neglects intuition and the aspects that don't require some formalised cultural convention.

 

To refer to the original example- when two people are relatively convinced that they love each other they may discuss some kind of notion of commitment or marriage etc. etc. This now entails a formal social contract and expressions and gestures that humans in their respective cultures recognise are an indication of attraction. This is not to say they are baseless, since these have arguably been derived from standard "biologically grounded" mechanisms. It is possible to treat the interaction and social groups of other species in much the same way (and as we are mammals, the parallels are striking across the class).

 

What this means is that it is not improper to presume that other animals have a faculty of consent, albeit the considerations must be altered from that which we would give to humans. This is not problematic- the social issues that govern human-human interactions are very different from that which govern other animals as the above would allude to. I personally believe that while it may be delusional to believe that an animal can act and think the same way as humans (with all our metaphysical obsessions), such that an animal would think something of marriage as a concept just as a human would, that this does not mean that they cannot express consent in such a way that we can recognise, nor would there be any real moral implications from this specifically. Again, it would be a matter of simply referring to a suitable application of first principles.


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